A Betty Neels Christmas: A Christmas ProposalWinter Wedding

by Betty Neels

  He wandered to the door, whistling to the dogs as he went, so that Emily was left quite alone, contemplating a future in which she had no interest at all.

  She hardly saw him for the next two days. Mrs Wright was at pains to tell her that he was busy at his practice and had a number of patients at the hospital as well. ‘And not only in Utrecht,’ she remarked. ‘There is a big hospital in Zeist, you know, and he does a lot of surgery there, too.’

  All the same, even if he had no time for Emily, he seemed to have it for everyone else. The house seemed full on each successive evening with his friends and Heleen always seemed to be with one or other party of guests. Emily, keeping up her end of a variety of conversations with anyone who chose to speak to her, kept a hawk’s eye on the girl, not seeing, in her turn, that the Professor contrived to keep her in view from wherever he happened to be. She was heartily glad when these social occasions were over; she found them hard to bear, for although the Professor was a charming host and was careful to make her feel completely at home, there was never any chance to speak to him alone. Not, she reminded herself very frequently, that she wanted to do that.

  She spent a good deal of the morning with Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn on her birthday. The old lady was in a reminiscing mood, sitting up in her easy chair by the fire, surrounded by presents and cards. They had their coffee together and when they had finished it she asked Emily to open a drawer in the great pillow cupboard facing the bed, and bring her the leather-covered albums there. They were family photos and Emily, kneeling on a cushion by the old lady, looked entranced at the Professor as a small boy, as a youth, a student, a young man. There were other photos too; of his parents and brother and sister, but she didn’t do more than glance at them but leafed back the pages to those of Renier, listening all the while to her companion’s voice talking about him. When the old lady said suddenly: ‘For a girl who has no interest in Renier, you are remarkably thorough in your study of his photographs.’ Emily jerked upright to stare into the bright old eyes.

  ‘Well,’ she mumbled, ‘looking at photos is always fun.’

  ‘I’m sorry you won’t stay,’ said Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn.

  ‘Yes, I—I… Oh, I can’t, you must know that I can’t.’ She stopped, appalled at her treacherous tongue, and her companion patted her hand and said in a gentle little voice:

  ‘Yes, my dear, I do know.’ She leaned back in her chair and went on in quite a different voice: ‘I’m sure you’ll make a great success of your new job when you get it, my dear. And now tell me, are you going to wear that charming dress you wore at Christmas? It was so pretty. I have a new one, you know—grey chiffon, and I shall wear my diamonds.’

  They talked clothes after that and who would be at the party, and presently Emily went downstairs to take a look at Doctor Wright; he had seemed a little off colour, she had thought, perhaps he had been overdoing things a little. But the holiday had done him good; he was full of plans for the future and the Professor encouraged him in this. The two men sat and discussed it whenever the Professor was free, with Mrs Wright chipping in from time to time. She had enjoyed her holiday too and Emily, thinking about it, supposed that in a strange sort of way, she had as well.

  Emily dressed with extreme care that evening. The whole family would be there and just a few friends—close friends, Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn had said, and although she had met almost all of them at Christmas, she felt shy as she went downstairs just before dinner. She crossed the hall slowly and paused outside the drawing room door and jumped out of her skin at the Professor’s soft voice. ‘Scared, Emily?’

  She whizzed round then and saw him standing in the open doorway of his study, watching her.

  She had to do something to give her heart the chance to steady itself. She put a hand up to her neat brown head and gave it a reassuring pat. ‘Not in the least,’ she assured him frostily.

  ‘Oh, good.’ He shut the door behind him and came to stand beside her. ‘Because I am—the whole family, you know—rather a lot to swallow at one go.’

  ‘Oh, what nonsense!’ cried Emily, wanting to giggle at the idea of the Professor being afraid of anyone. ‘I don’t believe you’ve been scared of anything or anyone in the whole of your life.’

  ‘You’re wrong. There’s one thing I’m very afraid of: that the girl I want to marry won’t have me.’

  Emily studied her shoes so that her face would have time to compose itself. ‘Of course she will—’ she added involuntarily: ‘She’s so very pretty…’

  The Professor looked taken aback. ‘Who is?’ he asked with deep interest.

  ‘Well, Heleen, of course.’ Emily took a step nearer the door. ‘Oughtn’t we to go in?’

  He ignored that. ‘You are still determined to carve yourself a career?’

  She fixed her eyes on his waistcoat, thinking to herself that she was glad that he wore conventional evening clothes, beautifully cut. ‘Yes,’ she said at length.

  ‘You have no wish to marry and have a family?’

  She didn’t answer and after a moment the Professor uttered a satisfied ‘Aha!’ caught her close in a grip which almost pulverised her rib cage and kissed her with force. ‘You remember that, my girl,’ he said softly, and opened the door and swept her inside.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE ROOM seemed full of people, and Emily, aware that she had met them all at Christmas and the New Year and ought to remember their names, smiled uncertainly. She had a fine flush by reason of the Professor’s savage kissing and any of her nursing friends would have declared her to be in a state of shock. She was aware, too, of the Professor’s hand holding her firmly by the arm just as though he had guessed that for one moment she had entertained the childish idea of turning tail and making for the door again. It was a relief when after a second of silence everyone started to talk at once, converging on the Professor as he made his way to where his grandmother sat in state, her injured ankle on a footstool, the grey chiffon draperies arranged becomingly about her small person. She put up her delicately made-up face for his kiss, thanked him for his gift, and turned to Emily.

  ‘You look very pretty, Emily, if I were a man I would fall head over heels in love with you,’ she chuckled, ‘and certainly when you blush so charmingly! Thank you for your gift, my dear. I shall use them and remember you.’ She put out a hand and caught Emily’s. ‘I’m going to miss you very much. You suit this house, you know.’

  ‘It’s a very beautiful house,’ said Emily carefully. ‘I shall miss it too.’

  ‘But not so much that she is prevented from carving herself a career,’ remarked the Professor crossly, so that she gave him a startled look. Really, it was impossible to make head or tail of the man! Not that it mattered, she reminded herself silently.

  ‘I’m wearing the diamonds,’ observed Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn, and that surprised Emily too, for the old lady wasn’t given to boasting about her possessions; she accepted them as a matter of course. ‘They go to Renier’s wife when I die.’

  ‘Who’s talking of dying on your birthday?’ demanded her grandson. ‘And here comes the champagne so that we can toast you.’

  A tuneful kind of toast it was too, Emily discovered, with everyone raising their glasses and bursting into song. She managed to make out the words too, for the Professor was bellowing them in a rich baritone voice: ‘Lang zal ze leven,’ so Emily sang as well, even managing the bit about ‘in de gloria’ while the old lady sat in her chair and beamed at everyone wishing that she should live long in glory.

  They went into dinner after that and Emily found that she had Doctor Wright on one side of her and Franz on the other. ‘And I’m sorry,’ she told him kindly, ‘that you have to have me instead of that beauty you brought with you.’

  Franz laughed at her. ‘I’ll tell you a secret; I asked Renier if I could sit next to you, you see. You’re the only girl I know who enjoys her food and doesn’t rabbit on about raw carrots and calories. You’ve no idea how trying it is when one i
s made to feel guilty at enjoying a good square meal!’

  And Emily, a kind-hearted girl, obliged him by eating each delicious course with just the right amount of enthusiasm, although in truth she had no appetite at all and everything she ate tasted of sawdust.

  There were some twenty-four people at table and she knew most of them slightly. The Professor, with his grandmother on his right, sat at the head of the vast table, and his sister Evelina, acting as his hostess, was at the foot; aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends were ranged on either side, and everyone was talking. Emily found time to look around the ladies present, all splendidly dressed if not entirely fashionable, but Franz’s girl-friend and some of the younger cousins made up for that in their silver tissue trouser suits, layered chiffons and slinky tunics. Emily felt herself to be not entirely fashionable either, and then was happily reassured by Franz’s cheerful: ‘You look very nice, Emily. I don’t like girls in trousers—not in the evening—nor does Renier.’ Heleen, she had already observed, was wearing an orange and silver tissue tunic and trousers; she looked stunning, and her pleasure was dimmed at once by the thought that Renier probably made an exception in Heleen’s case. Certainly he looked at her a great deal during the evening, and Emily couldn’t blame him—Heleen was devastatingly pretty; Louisa would look like that when she had finished with the modelling school.

  ‘You’re not listening,’ said Franz in her ear, and she gave him a guilty look and then smiled because he was smiling too. He was really very like Renier, if only Renier would smile more often.

  Dinner lasted a long time, with speeches and toasts and finally the birthday cake to cut and the entire household staff invited in to share it and drink champagne with everyone else, while Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn sat smiling and nodding like a happy child.

  Presently she went to bed, carried upstairs by her grandson. As he sat her down carefully in her chair she said suddenly: ‘She won’t come for the diamonds, dear boy.’

  The Professor didn’t look in the least put out. ‘No, I know that, Grandmother, but she will come for love, but she has to discover that for herself.’ He bent and kissed her. ‘Goodnight, my dear.’ He smiled down at the elderly face. ‘You’re a matchmaker, aren’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘I should like you to be happy, Renier, and I have always cherished a wish to be a great-grandmother.’

  ‘I shall do my best, my dear.’

  Emily, naturally unaware of this interesting conversation, stayed with Franz, who had taken her under his wing for the evening, shepherding her from one group to another, making it easy for her to talk to everyone, keeping her so occupied that she didn’t get near the Professor for the rest of the evening, and he for his part evinced no wish to single her out for conversation. She hadn’t really expected it, but she did wish that he would be consistent in his manner towards her. These unexpected and exciting encounters were delightful, but they would have been easier to cope with if he were easy in his manner towards her for the rest of the time. She watched him now, chatting up Heleen. The wretched girl was waving her false eyelashes at him in a most ridiculous manner. Emily, who had very adequate eyelashes of her own, turned her back on the pair of them.

  The last day was spent in a visit to the hospital with Doctor Wright where the Professor, looking every inch a man of his calling, treated her with a cool civility which made her wish for a cap and uniform. He had nothing to say to her that wasn’t purely professional and bade her goodbye with a careless: ‘See you later,’ which left her peevish and unhappy. And at dinner that evening the conversation was almost entirely taken up by the route they should take back to England and innumerable messages for mutual friends. Emily, in the velvet skirt and one of the new blouses, had the unpleasant feeling that she was surplus to the occasion; not that she was neglected or ignored in any way, perhaps, she told herself, she was imagining it all. Certainly she felt shy and awkward, in consequence of which her manner was alternately stiff and then, in an effort to appear quite at her ease, much too chatty.

  They were to leave during the following afternoon, in time to board the night ferry from the Hoek, and Emily spent a bad night, alternately terrified that the Professor wouldn’t do as he had promised and be home to see them on their way, and heartbroken because even if he did, she wasn’t going to see him again afterwards. She went down to breakfast to find him on the point of leaving the house, but he paused just long enough to ask her why she looked like something the tide had washed up.

  ‘Worrying about the trip?’ he asked with brisk kindness. ‘No need; you’re a good driver and Mrs Wright will be beside you.’ He eyed her narrowly. ‘Or are you over-excited at the prospect of getting back to work?’

  ‘How you do harp on that!’ she snapped.

  ‘But my dear girl, it’s your whole future.’

  She longed to yell at him that she had no choice. Unlike Louisa and Heleen she had no looks to speak of and no smart chat to intrigue him. She sighed deeply without knowing it and didn’t see him grin. ‘I’ve had a lovely time here,’ she told him rather primly. ‘Thank you very much, Professor.’

  He said on a sigh: ‘Renier. We have enjoyed having you. Grandmother is going to miss you and without you I doubt very much if the Wrights would have come on their own. You’ll be staying with Louisa?’

  She remembered that he had asked her already. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I must be going; I’ve a host of outpatients. By the way, which branch of nursing do you plan to specialise in?’

  She stared at him, her mind an unfortunate blank. ‘I—I haven’t decided.’

  He nodded carelessly. ‘Enjoy your morning.’

  Emily was left to her solitary breakfast; the Wrights having theirs in their room so that Doctor Wright might rest as much as possible.

  Renier arrived punctually for lunch which they ate without haste, making plans for the next visit. ‘When are you coming to England?’ asked Maud Wright.

  The Professor shrugged. ‘There are two cases I have to see within the next few weeks, but I don’t expect to stay any length of time—neither of them are operable, I believe. I go to Brussels tomorrow.’

  Emily listened in deepening gloom. She hadn’t expected to see Renier again, but she hadn’t been able to stifle a tiny hope that she might be wrong. Now it seemed that the remote chance could be scotched.

  The actual leave taking took but a few minutes. They had been packed and ready with the baggage already stowed, so that all that there remained to do was to put on coats and hats and get into the car. Hans and Bep were in the hall as they came downstairs, to shake their hands and wish them a good journey, but they melted into the background as Renier came out of his study. He kissed Maud Wright, shook the doctor by the hand and then turned to Emily. For a glorious moment she thought that he would kiss her too, but he didn’t, only offered a hand in a quick, impersonal handshake, and went to the door with them. Emily didn’t look back as she drove away, nor did she wave, and Mrs Wright, after one look at her pale face, talked cheerful nothings for the next ten minutes or so.

  Emily wasn’t sure how she got through the next day or two. She had already refused the Wrights’ invitation to stay a couple of nights with them while she found herself somewhere to live, but when Dolly rang up while she was still at the Wrights’ house having lunch before she went on her way, it was impossible to refuse her offer of a room for the night. ‘And Peter will fetch you,’ said Dolly. ‘He’ll be with you in half an hour.’

  Emily had been grateful not to have to go to an hotel and they had been kindness itself. All the same the following morning she had cast her eyes down the columns of the paper, made a list of likely addresses, and taken herself off, with the promise that if she didn’t find something to her liking she would spend another night at Dolly and Peter’s flat.

  The first two or three places she went to were hopeless; small, sad little rooms and not quite clean, but by lunch time she found something which would do. It was a top floor room in a
row of Victorian houses on the edge of Highgate. It was rather barely furnished, but the view was quite nice and it was clean. There was a gas ring and a wash basin and a small gas fire and it would suit well enough until she had found herself a job. She had some money, enough to last her a month; she paid a week’s rent and arranged to go back later that afternoon. ‘I’ll give you a key,’ her landlady told her, ‘and I hope you’re a quiet girl; I’ll have no rowdiness in my house.’

  Emily assured her that she didn’t much care for rowdiness herself and hoped that Mrs Twigg wasn’t going to be too much of a tartar. Her face was stern enough, with a pulled-down mouth and a perpetual frown.

  So later on, after lunch, Emily got a taxi, said goodbye to Dolly and went off to Highgate, with the earnest request that neither she nor Peter would tell anyone where she had gone.

  ‘Why ever not?’ Dolly had asked, and then: ‘Oh, you mean Renier. Look, dear, tell you what—don’t tell me the address, then I can say with truth that I don’t know where you are—not that we expect him, though he does pop up unexpectedly from time to time.’ She had added: ‘But you will tell someone, won’t you? Your sister Mary? I mean, supposing you’re taken ill, I’d never forgive myself.’

  Emily promised, just as she promised to meet Dolly one day for coffee. And she would, although she felt sure that very soon they would forget her, especially if they didn’t know where she was. It was like starting a new life, she told herself, as she unpacked her few things and sat down to write to Mary. She found the idea so depressing that presently she cried herself to sleep.

  She spent the next two days job-hunting; it should have been easy enough; she was a trained nurse with good experience, but her own hospital regretfully told her that they couldn’t take on any more staff because there was a shortage of money, and that was the case with the next two hospitals as well. There was a staff nurse vacancy at the fourth hospital she applied to, but it was in the East End with no living-in accommodation and getting to and fro would be too much of a problem. On the third morning she went to an agency, where she was offered several private cases, all outside London, as well as night duty in a nursing home. ‘Can you speak Arabic?’ asked the woman in the office, and when Emily uttered a surprised: ‘Well, no,’ was told that she might not suit.